Update of: America's misadventures in the Middle East. 2010.

Ambassador Chas W. Freeman Jr. is one of America's most brilliant, experienced--and witty--diplomats. America's Misadventures starts with his previously unpublished reflection on Pres. George H. W. Bush's handling of the Iraq-Kuwait crisis of 1990-91. (He was U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia at the time.) In the thoughtful essays that follow, Freeman reflects on the origins of Washington's many intelligence failures in the Middle East, "the American way of war", and Washington's failure in recent decades to plan for a stable political end-state for the wars it has so cavalierly launched. As Prof. William B. Quandt notes in his Foreword: there is much to learn about "old-style" diplomacy here, and much to regret that Freeman's views seem so "radical" from the perspective of today's highly politicized discourse about this crucial region.

One of America's most distinguished diplomatists presents two dozen of his essays on the Middle East, all of them trenchant and many previously unpublished. The essays span the period from 1990 through 2010.

A collections of essays on American involvement in the Middle East

A critical assessment of America's foreign policy in the Middle East throughout the past four decades evaluates and connects regional engagements since 1990 while revealing their massive costs.

A spellbinding narrative account of America in the Middle East that "reads almost like a thriller" (The Economist) The Middle East is the beginning and the end of U.S. foreign policy: events there influence our alliances, make or break presidencies, govern the price of oil, and draw us into war. But it was not always so—and as Patrick Tyler shows in A World of Trouble, a thrilling chronicle of American misadventures in the region. The story of American presidents' dealings there is one of mixed motives, skulduggery, deceit, and outright foolishness, as well as of policymaking and diplomacy. Tyler draws on newly opened presidential archives to dramatize the approach to the Middle East across U.S. presidencies from Eisenhower to George W. Bush. He takes us into the Oval Office and shows how our leaders made momentous decisions; at the same time, the sweep of this narrative—from the Suez crisis to the Iran hostage crisis to George W. Bush's catastrophe in Iraq—lets us see the big picture as never before. Tyler tells a story of presidents being drawn into the affairs of the region against their will, being kept in the dark by local potentates, being led astray by grasping subordinates, and making decisions about the internal affairs of countries they hardly understand. Above all, he shows how each president has managed to undo the policies of his predecessor, often fomenting both anger against America on the streets of the region and confusion at home. A World of Trouble is the Middle East book we need now: compulsively readable, free of cant and ideology, and rich in insight about the very human challenges a new president will face as he or she tries to restore America's standing in the region.

For fifty-five years, the United States and Saudi Arabia were solid partners. Then came the 9/11 attacks, which sorely tested that relationship. In Thicker than Oil, Rachel Bronson reveals why the partnership became so intimate and how the countries' shared interests sowed the seeds of today's most pressing problem--Islamic radicalism. Drawing on a wide range of archival material, declassified documents, and interviews with leading Saudi and American officials, and including many colorful stories of diplomatic adventures and misadventures, Bronson chronicles a history of close, and always controversial, contacts. She argues that contrary to popular belief the relationship was never simply about "oil for security." Saudi Arabia's geographic location and religiously motivated foreign policy figured prominently in American efforts to defeat "godless communism." From Africa to Afghanistan, Egypt to Nicaragua, the two worked to beat back Soviet expansion. But decisions made for hardheaded Cold War purposes left behind a legacy that today enflames the Middle East. Looking forward, Bronson outlines the challenges confronting the relationship. The Saudi government faces a zealous internal opposition bent on America's and Saudi Arabia's destruction. Yet from the perspective of both countries, the status quo is clearly unsustainable.

After two decades of hostile confrontation, China and the United States initiated negotiations in the early 1970s to normalize relations. Senior officials of the Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan administrations had little experience dealing with the Chinese, but they soon learned that their counterparts from the People's Republic were skilled negotiators. This study of Chinese negotiating behavior explores the ways senior officials of the PRC--Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping, and others--managed these high-level political negotiations with their new American "old friends." It follows the negotiating process step by step, and concludes with guidelines for dealing with Chinese officials. Originally written for the RAND Corporation, this study was classified because it drew on the official negotiating record. It was subsequently declassified, and RAND published the study in 1995. For this edition, Solomon has added a new introduction, and Chas Freeman has written an interpretive essay describing the ways in which Chinese negotiating behavior has, and has not, changed since the original study. The bibiliography has been updated as well.

With clarity and concision, Juan Cole disentangles the key foreign policy issues that America is grappling with today--from our dependence on Middle East petroleum to the promotion of Islamophobia by the American right--and delivers his informed advice on the best way forward. Cole's unique ability to take the true Muslim perspective into account when looking at East-West relations make his insights well-rounded and prescient as he suggests a course of action on fundamental issues like religion, oil, war and peace. With substantive recommendations for the next administration on how to move forward in key countries such as Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran, Engaging the Muslim World reveals how we can repair the damage of the disastrous foreign policy of the last eight years and forge ahead on a path of peace and prosperity. Cole argues: * Al-Qaeda is not a mass movement like fascism or communism but rather a small political cult like the American far right circles that produced Timothy McVeigh. * The Muslim world is not a new Soviet Bloc but rather is full of close allies or potential allies. * There can be no such thing as American energy independence, we will need Islamic oil to survive as a superpower into the next century. * Iran is not an implacable enemy of the U.S.--it can and should be fruitfully engaged, which is a necessary step for American energy security since Tehran can play the spoiler in the strategic Persian Gulf. * America's best hope in Iraq is careful, deliberate military disengagement, rather than either through immediate withdrawal or a century-long military presence--in other words, both the Democrat and Republican presidential candidates are wrong.